


Mulder's Guilt

by muldersboyishenthousiasm



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst?, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 08:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13209690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muldersboyishenthousiasm/pseuds/muldersboyishenthousiasm
Summary: Mulder dealing (or not dealing) with the guilt related to Scully having cancer.





	Mulder's Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: brief allusion to suicide. Nothing overly dramatic. But I'm warning you anyway. 
> 
> Beta readers: @greekowl87 and @baronessblixen (from Tumblr also both present on A03) All remaining errors are mine only.

He had felt so guilty during her hospitalization. Hell, during all of her ordeal. What she had endured because of him. What suffering he had put her whole family through. Everything was his fault. There was no way he could ever forgive himself for having dragged her with him in his endless quest for the truth. She had paid the price of his endeavours multiple times and she had never complained about it. But now it seemed it would be the last time.

When he had first learned about her sickness, he had gone back home to his lonely apartment. He had kneeled in front of the toilet, and retched his guts out all night. He had cried himself to sleep on the cold tiles of the bathroom.  

During those never ending months, he had put on a brave face, trying to survive even though he felt ready to break down at any moment. He had faked many smiles and laughs, he had tried looking like he could bear it all on his own. It was his fault after all. He was now paying for it and the harrowing pain he felt in his heart was his constant companion.  

He kept visiting her at the hospital as often as he could. He held her hand and squeezed it while she slept. She had grown weaker and weaker as the days turned into weeks. She wasn’t responding to any treatment the doctors came up with. She was a doctor herself. She knew how these things worked.  

In the end, she knew there was no more hope. But she didn’t want to admit it to her family. She wanted to protect them from losing their faith. Her mother and her brother Bill Jr had prayed beside her bed. They had spent sleepless nights at her bedside and Mulder himself had noticed how the small glittering hope in their eyes kept fading as the weeks turned into months.  

Maggie Scully had cried into his arms one night and thanked him for being there for her daughter. Mulder had bitten his tongue so hard he had had tasted a foul, metallic sting of blood. He did his best to avoid replying how much he wished it was him who was sick. His partner’s impending death was all his fault. He couldn’t get this thought out of his head.  

The day the call came in to inform him her cancer was in remission, he was sitting on his couch. His TV was turned off, his door was locked and he had just put down his pencil back onto the letter he had addressed to her. He was reaching for his gun when the phone made him jump three feet into the air. He stared at it and wished it would go silent again. But it didn’t. It kept ringing until he found the courage to grab the phone instead of his gun.  

He brought it to his head and listened to her slow breathing.  

‘Mulder? It’s me.’

And just like that, his world was turned upside down again. He couldn’t help it. He cracked a smile, the first honest grin he had had since she told him she about her cancer. He felt salty tears run down his pale cheeks, he felt lightheaded and thought he might faint. Before hanging up, he promised he’d head to the hospital as soon as his legs would allow him to go to his car.  

He was there twenty minutes later. He couldn’t wait for the elevator to arrive so he took the stairs and ran up to the floor that had seen her suffering during the last months. He arrived in front of her room and straightened his clothes while trying to catch his breath. He was about to push the door to enter when someone snatched him by the shirt. He almost fell down on his backside. When he turned and faced the man standing in front of him, he took an involuntary step backwards.  

‘You have no business here,’ the tall red-haired man declared.

‘She called to see me!’ Mulder protested weakly.  

‘I’m not letting you in,’ Bill jr retorted.  

‘But, she’ll…’  

‘Go away, and never come back. She hates you. You’re not welcome in her life anymore.’

Mulder’s shoulders sagged and he felt tears well up in his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to fight anymore. He was exhausted himself. And with Bill’s words, his guilt had surfaced again, stronger than ever. Maybe he really shouldn’t insist. He had put her in more danger plenty of times, she had gotten sick on numerous occasions because she had accepted to follow him. He was the cause of all her mishaps.  

If he were to go in that room and she’d hold on to him more than ever, she’d keep accompanying him and getting hurt again because of him. It wouldn’t end and it’d be his fault. He couldn’t let her do that to herself. Bill Jr was right. He probably hated him. She called him out of politeness. He was naive to have come here. He had to leave. Now.  

 

Mulder went back to his apartment that day and didn’t get out for two weeks. Skinner called twice to ask where he was. He answered that he needed to rest for some time and was given three weeks of vacation. Scully called him when she realised he wasn’t coming to visit her. But he let the answering machine do its work. He didn’t have the courage to explain to her what was really going on. After her fourth call, he unplugged both his phone and his computer. He began skipping meals and didn’t watch TV anymore.  

Part of him was dying to see her again, to touch her hand, to hold her in his arms and be held back by her. Part of him knew he could not ever dream of such a happy moment because of the suffering he would bring to her if they were to see each other again. He feared she would now see in him the cause of her cancer. The cause of her struggles. He dreaded that she might tell him that she did really did hate him.  

 

Due to him not eating, he became sick. He kept spiralling in his dark thoughts and felt himself being dragged deeper and deeper in this vicious circle. He felt sicker and sicker and without anybody (especially Scully) to take care of him, he didn’t try to heal himself.  

One day, while he was sleeping, he rolled down his couch and banged his head on the coffee table. He felt a trickle of warm blood run down his forehead. He would have closed his eyes to go back to his dreamless sleep had it not been for the headache that came with his fall. It kept him barely conscious. Due to his hazy state of consciousness, it took him a while to realise he wasn’t alone in the apartment anymore.  

He saw from the corner of his eyes someone walk towards him. He hadn’t heard the door open and neither had he heard it close. After having pushed away the coffee table, the newcomer kneeled in front of him and put his head in their lap. They raked their delicate fingers through his dirty hair.

Mulder focused his gaze on the fuzzy face hovering above him. He noticed the reddish hair first and then the feminine lips.

‘Scully, you came…’ he breathed out before passing out.

‘Oh, Fox,’ Maggie Scully murmured back. ‘What have you done to yourself?’

 

Dana was finally cured and she was free to go back home. Her mother had insisted she spent some time at the familial house. Her daughter had not protested and let herself be cared after by her. The older Scully woman had been glad about this decision and she had done all in her power to spoil her younger daughter. But there was one thing she couldn’t offer her. She couldn’t get Mulder to come visit her.  

In fact, Fox Mulder hadn’t given any sign of life after the phone call Dana had made to his apartment. He had been the first person she had called when she’d heard about the long awaited good news. He had promised he’d come by the hospital but had never showed up. Bill jr had even sworn he hadn’t seen him either. Maggie had been worried sick about her daughter’s partner’s obstinate silence.

The problem was that Dana couldn’t recuperate fully if her partner wouldn’t come and support her too. Maggie had waited and waited before finally making the jump and going by Fox’s place. She had taken the spare key to his apartment when Dana was sleeping and left the familial house discreetly. She drove to Alexandria and impatiently waited for the lift to come down. She knocked thrice and when she didn’t get any answer, she hurried to unlock the door.  

There was absolutely no light in the apartment. The TV was off, the curtains were drawn and the air was stuffy. Maggie hesitantly turned on the hallway switch and dragged her gaze across the room. She saw him lying on his back between his worn out couch and the coffee table. She walked to him and gasped when she saw the gun on the table. She pushed the piece of furniture harder than needed and kneeled besides Fox’s head. He had a gash on his forehead and was blinking at her face, trying to identify the intruder.

She motherly put his head in her lap, and ran her trembling fingers through his hair. He had obviously skipped showertime in the last few days but she didn’t care. He was alive. She could do her best and patch him up.  

She saw his lips moving and leaned towards him to hear what he was saying. He called out her daughter’s name.

Maggie felt her heart breaking for this poor man. She could never understand all the trials he had went through to save Dana’s life. And she could never figure out why he looked like the weight of the world was balanced on his shoulders.  

 

Mulder woke up in a plushy bed the next morning. He was wearing a too large t-shirt and matching pyjamas pants. He tried to get his bearings but he didn’t recognise the room. He could smell nice aromas floating in the air. He yawned and sat up in the bed. His head was throbbing and he felt a shiver run down his spine.  

The minute he put his big toe on the floor, Maggie Scully burst in the room with a glass of water and some Tylenol. She smiled widely at him and had him swallow the medicine before answering any of his questions.  

‘You’re in my house. I brought you yesterday,’ she explained. ‘You banged your head on the coffee table in your living room and you were running a fever.’

Mulder looked confused. Maggie took the opportunity to feel his forehead and nodded approvingly when she noticed the fever had broken down and his hazel eyes were clear. She combed her fingers through the hair floppy on his forehead and invited him to the kitchen to have breakfast.  

‘Is Scully here?’ he worried.

‘Of course, sweetheart! She’s been here since she came out of the hospital.’

His face turned paler than the bandage on his brow and he backed off towards the bed.  

‘I… I… have to go,’ he said frightfully. ‘She can’t see me.’

‘But, why?’ Maggie frowned.

‘I… I… have to…’

He was frantically searching for his shoes when they both heard Scully slowly shuffling in.

‘Mulder?’

‘Scu-lly,’ he stuttered.  

Her eyes widened and she hastily stepped in front of him. Maggie exited the room and closed the door discreetly.  

‘Where were you?’ Scully asked after having taken a seat next to her partner. ‘I… couldn’t…’ he began ‘I can’t…’

She put a hand on his and squeezed it tenderly.  

‘When I was sick, I felt you by my side. I knew you were there because I could recognise your touch. I felt your strength, I sensed your presence. It was a great comfort to know you were there for me,’ she whispered. ‘I hoped you could be with me during my recovery. But you never came by.’

Mulder had lowered his eyes to the floor and avoided her gaze. She put a finger under his chin and forced him to look at her.  

‘What happened?’ she added.

She was not ready for his reaction. She had already seen him cry on some occasions. She had seen him be sad and moody. But she had never seen him burst into tears like that. His sobs shook his whole body, his tears soaked the shoulder he was crying on. His small whimpering testified of his grief. They remained huddled together on the bed for long minutes until he abruptly stopped crying.

He wiped at his eyes with his hands and lowered put his face in his hands. She stroke his back soothingly and waited for him to say something.  

‘Scully…’

‘Yes, Mulder?’

‘Do you… hate me?’ he let out a long breath and still kept his face hidden from her eyes.

Her hand stopped moving on his back and she felt her anger rising.  

‘Who told you that?’ she muttered between her teeth.  

‘Bill Jr. He told me you hated me. When you were sick he kept me at bay as much as he could. I would only come and visit you when he wasn’t there. You were sick. And once you were cured, I avoided you because I thought I would cause you more hurt, more pain, if I showed up in your life. He was right, I feel so guilty for putting you through all of this. You’re an angel and I took your wings. I forced you to endure my theories, to face deadly forces multiple times. You risked your life when you were with me. You became sick because of me. They wanted to punish me. To stop my quest for the Truth and yet, you were the one to suffer.’  

Scully put her arms around him and lowered his hands from his face. Without warning, Mulder hugged her back and nuzzled his face in the crook of her neck.  

He added. ‘I’m the guilty one… I’m the one who should have been sick… I’m the one who should be… I should be… dead.’

As soon as the last word left his lips, Scully straightened her back and loosen her embrace to force him to look into her eyes.  

‘Never, ever, ever say that again, Fox Mulder.’

His beautiful hazel eyes were burning with unshed tears and he fought to keep himself from crying again. She squeezed his face between her palms.

‘You do not deserve to die. You are everything to me. Your trials are mine too. I might not share your theories but I make my own decisions. You are not responsible for my having been sick. You are a great man. You are a great partner. And you deserve so much more. You were always there for me and I’ll always be there for you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t let others tell you that you’re wrong, or that you’re guilty. You are not. Also, I need you as much as you need me.’

 

When Maggie Scully came back in the room to announce dinner was ready, she found them asleep. Dana was leaning on the comfortable pillows behind her back and she was holding Fox in a protective embrace. His head had slipped down to rest on her stomach and she was somehow unconsciously still soothingly caressing his hair.  

Maggie closed the door behind her and went back to eat her dinner. She decided to keep their plates ready in the fridge. She smiled to herself. All was back to normal after all.  


End file.
